With six months to go until COP30 in Belém, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is confidently stepping into the global climate action spotlight. With 65% of the region’s electricity already coming from renewables – and no new coal projects in the pipeline – LAC is not only a clean energy leader, but a region redefining what climate ambition looks like.
At the UN Climate Week in Panama, E3G, the Energy Transition Council (ETC), Instituto Talanoa, and Transforma co-hosted a high-level dialogue on the energy transition in LAC. With participation from over 30 leaders representing governments, civil society, multilateral development banks (MDBs), and the private sector across the region, the dialogue demonstrated its key role in advancing the delivery of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by identifying challenges and opportunities, and strengthening regional collaboration. The dialogue also played a crucial role in linking global ambition to regional action, based on the Global Stocktake (GST), to keep the 1.5°C goal within reach.
Turning leadership into leverage
Brazil’s COP30 Presidency has positioned this year as a moment of delivery and the implementation of the Paris Agreement, and for accelerating the global energy transition. The region is already showing regional leadership that aligns national implementation with global goals:
- Honduras joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance during Climate Week, becoming the 10th member country in the region and the 62nd across the globe. The Americas are now a continent free of coal expansion projects in the pipeline, adding further momentum to the Call to Action for No New Coal.
- Throughout 2024, Chile generated 33% of its electricity from renewables, driven by a successful market-based model; Colombia announced a package of 19 measures to remove regulatory and procedural obstacles that caused delays in renewables expansion; and Mexico announced over 620 billion pesos (approximately $32.17 billion) public investment to expand, modernise and strengthen its grid and transmission infrastructure to improve reliability and better integrate renewables.
This story of regional leadership deserves to be amplified through the COP30 Action Agenda.
Regional momentum requires concrete support
Ambition can’t scale without support. Despite high renewable energy penetration, the region faces shared challenges: underinvested grids, limited storage, regional interconnection gaps, persistent energy poverty, and the risk of false solutions undermining progress.
Civil society voices were clear at the dialogue: it’s time for international financial institutions, especially MDBs, to stop funding fossil infrastructure and deliver on the commitments made under the Baku Climate Unity Pact, scaling finance towards the $300 billion pledge, and beyond on a credible pathway to $1.3 trillion by 2035 through the Baku-Belém Roadmap.
Brazil’s G20 and BRICS Presidencies are already focusing on driving the financial reform agenda. The task now is translating the momentum of this agenda into delivery. Country platforms and coordinated coalitions can help to accelerate implementation. But support must be concrete.
Role of multilateral coalitions
This dialogue showed the ETC’s ability to bring together the right mix of actors — regionally and globally — to discuss actions that turn political will into practical action, and its value in helping countries and partners coordinate around specific priorities, including:
- Mobilising financing for renewables and fossil fuel phase out
- Expanding storage
- Supporting just transitions
- Scaling clean energy access
By anchoring these conversations in regional realities and connecting them to global frameworks like the GST, the ETC can support countries to lead, while ensuring the international system delivers.
Initiatives like the Global Energy Transition Forum (GETF), Global Clean Power Alliance (GCPA), and Global Coalition for Energy Planning (GCEP) must also better align to provide concrete support to unlock regional strengths, reduce costs, and help build clean economies that generate green jobs.
Looking to COP30: from signals to systems
Panama’s Climate Week was a strong starting point — marking the beginning of a path from Panama to the 1st Energy Planning Summit in Rio and on to the June Climate Meetings in Bonn, leading up to COP30. It was also a signal that LAC is at the forefront of delivering self-reliant, inclusive, low-carbon electricity systems, and it is ready to go further: shaping what a just, inclusive, and prosperous energy transition looks like in practice.
Brazil’s COP30 Presidency has called for a “Global Mutirão“ — a collective, community-driven effort to meet global climate goals. That means aligning finance and policy through the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap and ensuring LAC has the tools to further realise its leadership potential.
LAC’s leadership can inspire and connect with other regions. Supporting initiatives like the NDC Implementation Platform can foster regional collaboration aligned with the GST and amplify the region’s impact globally.
If the international community meets the speed and scale required, COP30 can be the moment we shift from fragmented effort to focused delivery, with LAC at the forefront, and platforms like ETC helping to set the implementation pathway.
E3G would like to thank Caio Victor Vieira (Instituto Talanoa) and Diana Carolina Barba Patiño (Transforma) for their contribution to this blog.
